


The sense of compassion

by hypothetical_otters



Category: Utopia (TV 2013)
Genre: Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Parent Death, Smoking, Trans Character, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:27:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypothetical_otters/pseuds/hypothetical_otters
Summary: '...slaughtering our fellow creatures gradually destroys the sense of compassion.' Utopia, Thomas More. Book 2, 'Social Relations'.
Kudos: 1





	The sense of compassion

Lee had a perfectly ordinary childhood. No childhood trauma here to turn him into an assassin. He was a perfectly healthy child. 

Except. 

No, not except. He was a healthy child. He just happened to disagree with the adults around him. His name is lee, he is male. These are the things about which he disagreed with his parents. They seemed to think he was female. 

This is emphatically not true, and after 16 years, he leaves. The things he couldn’t live without fit into one bright yellow sports bag. He considered writing a note, but didn’t. He vanished from their lives entirely. 

He moved from couch to couch, fell in with what his mother might have called the wrong crowd. They taught him how to pick locks, and before long he discovered that they’d taught him rudimentary weapon making and how to cover his tracks. The wrong crowd indeed. 

He robs and robs until he has enough money for private surgery with the best doctors in the country. He considers an “accidental” death for them, but no. he does not want to leave a trace of his existence, but pulling the ladder up after him and cutting off access for the people who come after him leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. Once he has recovered, top surgery takes a lot out of him, he starts stealing again to get the money for a proper wardrobe. 

He finds a bright yellow suit, then another, then another. He loves them. He feels like him in these bright yellow suits. He pushes his hair up and back. He looks like he should. 

His first deliberate kill, his first that he does for himself, is his parents. He goes back to that house he grew up in, a house he doesn’t recognise as a home, and knocks on the door. His mother doesn’t recognise him. He tells her he’s from the gas board, an official visit after a gas leak a few streets away. She lets him in, very trusting of strangers. He looks around the house, there is no evidence that they have a child. He fills the house with gas, tells them the gas main is fine, and leaves. Two hours later, once it’s dark, he comes back. He jumps the fence into the back garden, and flicks his lit cigarette into the house through an open window. The cigarette is the same brand his father smokes (he checked earlier.) 

Lee is merciless. Lee has no ties to anyone else. He has only ever been Lee, never had any other names. God help anyone who thinks otherwise.

**Author's Note:**

> Utopia belongs to Channel 4. 
> 
> There are many things I want to say about Lee's suit. This is not that fic. 
> 
> This isn't really a fic about a trans character. It's sort of incidental.
> 
> Lee is an assassin and he is trans. These things are unrelated.


End file.
